Luna choked my name again as she stopped beside me. “Dwellers,” she hissed.
I jerked my gaze back down and spotted them. They were everywhere, like hungry ants swarming beneath the trees on the forest floor, hoping for a crumb to fall.
We just had to wade through the minefield of them. And not die in the process.
“Come, hurry!” I dragged her by the hand, not caring anymore if anyone spotted me. This was life-or-death. Her slight fingers were slippery with sweat and I readjusted my grip, determined not to lose her.
We wove between the colossal trees. I had to break stride when a dweller came too close. Cursing, I released her and let an arrow fly, striking the creature directly in the face. It dropped to its knees. Running forward, I kicked it onto its back. Lifting my gaze, I did a quick scan around us and reclaimed my arrow, pulling it free of the claylike body with a sucking sound. Using the same arrow, I took aim and let it fly again, clearing our path of another dweller.
We were surrounded. Their wet, sawing breaths crashed all around us. I kicked one square in the chest, launching it back, knocking two others down in the process.
We were under the city now, and I stole quick glances up, searching the trees, looking for a way up.
Luna stayed close. I felt her warm body beside mine as I dispatched dwellers, her shoulder aligned beside mine, never getting in the way of me reaching into my quiver for arrows.
Sometimes she would call out and warn me of one advancing at my back or side and I would answer the threat, launching another arrow. I might not hear anything over the dwellers’ soggy breaths, but evidently she still did.
She was armed, too, holding her sword at the ready. I didn’t want her to have to use it though—one drop of toxin off their receptors, and she would suffer. The fractured thought bounced through me that if I was quick with my arrow, the dwellers wouldn’t have to get too close.
Until I didn’t feel her beside me anymore.
“Luna,” I shouted, yanking arrow after arrow from behind me, shooting advancing dwellers with swift thunks. They were closing in, falling on me in an endless pour.
“Luna!” I roared, for once not caring about remaining quiet. It seemed like every dweller in the world was converging on us anyway.
Then suddenly it felt like another time. Another place.
I had a flash of myself struggling at the cell door of my prison, gripping the bars and screaming Bethan’s name until I went hoarse, until the last dwindling rays of midlight vanished. My last glimpse of anything was my father’s smiling face up on the ramparts.
“Fowler!”
I shook off the memories. Luna wielded her sword, thrusting it into the pale, soft body of a dweller.
“Luna! Get behind me!”
An indignant expression crossed her face.
“Luna,” I growled. With a curse, I jumped several paces until we fought back to back. I pulled my dagger from a sheath at my waist and started stabbing into dwellers, grateful for my height. I managed to avoid the toxin dripping from the nest of receptors in their faces and stabbed them in the heads.
I was worried that Luna wouldn’t be so lucky if one got too close. She was considerably shorter and didn’t have the best advantage to inflict damage.
“Luna,” I called over my shoulder. “We need to move!”
“How do you suggest we do that? They’re everywhere!”
I looped my left arm with hers. “Follow me.” With a yank, I pulled her after me, charging through and whacking a path with my sword.
I struck dwellers down, swerving around when I heard Luna cry out. A dweller had closed both its hands on her arm and was lowering its face to her, toxin dripping from its feelers. She was stabbing it in the belly with her sword, but it didn’t seem to care. It kept coming.
With a shout, I swung my sword and sent its head flying. Whirling around, I cut down several more dwellers, clearing a path for us to squeeze through. We were almost to the top of another rise now. The air glowed even brighter.
A giant crested the rise ahead of us. My battle cry withered in my throat. I didn’t recognize it as a dweller at first.
It rose up out of the night, limned in the red-gold haze from the village in the sky. This one was unlike the rest. It looked like some freakish entity reaching close to seven feet. Even the toxic receptors on its face were thick as my wrists, like wiggling snakes, stretching for a victim. It approached us, its feet falling heavily on the damp earth.
I clamped a hand on her arm and backed up.
“Fowler?” she gasped, and I realized she must have heard its louder-than-usual tread and sensed its size.
I grabbed an arrow and shot the monster in the face. It paused with a shudder, but its great body kept lumbering toward us.
With a curse, I pulled another arrow out and let it fly. The second arrow pinged off the edge of its shoulder and seemed only to enrage it. It huffed and moved faster now—faster than I’d ever seen a dweller move before. Its pasty gray body was almost running at us.